Ekaterina Belinskaya’s international success offers a pretty good argument that innate talent can sometimes be more important than experience. At the young age of 24, this Moscow-based artist is already one of the foremost fashion and artistic photographers in the world. In 2012, Belinskaya won the Best Photographer Award 2011 (first place in Advertising Photography Awards).

photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

Originally trained as an ecologist, she was nevertheless drawn to the arts, particularly photography. Legendary photographers such as Tim Walker and Helmut Newton have inspired her, but her style is her own. Each image she creates begins to tell a story, often staged as a fairy tale, that the viewers continue in their own imaginations. As is the case with most fairy tales, there’s both beauty and danger in her photos.

photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

Belinskaya’s images usually feature strickingly beautiful women, in period costumes often reminiscent of the Gothic era, yet so tastefully staged and designed that they suggest a timeless elegance. As is apparent in theRaven series, the symbols of danger create the tension and the drama in the image. The beautiful woman is not depicted, however, in a stereotypical fashion as a victim that needs to be saved by a courageous prince. She’s a complex and dual creature: feminine, beautiful and strong, yet containing within herself the danger and lure of the bird of prey beside her.

photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

The Raven series alludes to Edgar Allan Poe’s famous narrative poem by the same name, which was first published in 1845. More intricate and complex than a fairy tale–as is, in fact, Ekaterina Belinskaya’s photography itself–this symbolist poem traces a man’s gradual fall into madness as he converses with a raven about the loss of his lover, Leonore. Rather than consoling him, the bird of prey incites his despondency in various ways, including by repeating the word “Nevermore,” to reinforce the idea that he’s separated forever from the woman he loves.

photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya

While Belinskaya’s (poe)tic photography is even more open-ended in possible interpretations than Poe’s poem, it evokes similar feelings: the darkness of danger embodied by the bird of prey and the stark, somber surroundings; an atmosphere that combines great beauty and implicit menace, which is subtle and rich enough that it can’t be stereotyped as “Gothic” or any other genre, for that matter.

Each of Belinskaya’s series of images tantalizes not only the senses but also the imagination. I believe that, like the artists who inspired her, this young photographer will be a legend in her field. You can view more of Ekaterina Belinskaya’s art on her website, below:

Romanian-born photographer Dan St. Andrei adopts a philosophical approach to the art of photography. He states: “Life is eventually an eternal attempt to understand your purpose, to build up and mold, to grow and to define yourself … I would like to discover daily reasons to love myself.” His images take on so many different styles and approaches: from the fetishism of his sensual fragments; to the poetic dynamism of his photographs of dancers; to the reflexive and dream-like quality of his dystopic utopia images, which he calls, in a deliberate pun, Mytopia.

If his photo series have any common thread, it’s in depicting life, as Dan St. Andrei himself puts it, as “beautifully imperfect.” The beauty lies in the aesthetic impact, since Dan St. Andrei’s images are not only beautiful but also dreamy, even haunting. The imperfection is revealed in the human emotions and anxieties they reflect, holding a mirror to both what we reveal and what we hide within. As the artist puts it, through the art of photography, he searches “for the meanings and hidden motivations that put our world into motion.”

It’s difficult to imagine a world without fantasy, without dream. This would be a world devoid of possibilities, without a future. Dan St. Andrei captures our dreams and hopes in motion, as they develop, both literally from the camera as well as figuratively in our minds. He states: “There are moments when we ask ourselves about our purpose in life, about its meaning and our motivations. There are moments when we ask questions about life, as it is or as we imagine it to be.” The gap between reality and dream is not unbridgeable. It’s often connected, in fact, by art and our imaginations: “There are moments when we allow our imaginations to roam free; in which we allow ourselves to dream.”

Dan St. Andrei captures the dreamer in each of us, whether we’re artists or not. After all, it’s our dreams that make more bearable our imperfect reality; that help us change it for the better; that give us hope and a sense of drive and direction in life. Without these aesthetic dreams, we risk getting bogged down in the routines and responsibilities of daily life. The dreamer in us, the artist explains, “lives through these moments” when life’s “imperfection becomes beautiful.” This may be only our personal vision–a fantasy–or what, if we follow our dreams, we make happen in real life.

There is also a sense of nostalgia in Dan St. Andrei’s images, as he suggests bygone eras. He does this without melancholia however, even adding a ludic touch, as in the fashion series below, photographed by Dan St. Andrei and created with the help of the talented stylist, Alin Galatescu.

Andrei Octav Doicescu aptly stated: “The present disintegrates, first in history, then in nostalgia.” Nostalgia is an acute, often painful, awareness of an irretrievably lost past that we still long for in the present. But Dan St. Andrei shows us the past doesn’t have to evoke sadness. The past can reappear in our present as a playful celebration of previous epochs, in our imaginations, in art and of course in history.

Like a Proustian search for lost time in pictorial form–a search for lost love, for impossibly perfect social structures, for the (unattainable) fulfillment of our sensual and sexual desires–Dan St. Andrei’s photography captures the peregrinations of our search for meaning in a life deprived of certainties. You can view his portfolio on his website, http://danandrei.com/.

The photography of Jeanloup Sieff epitomizes class, sensuality and elegance. Born in Paris of parents of Polish origin, Sieff’s interest in photography began very early, at the age of 14, when he received a camera as a birthday gift. He quickly developed a knack for photographing women, which would continue to be a favorite subject. Sieff studied at the Vaugirard School of Photography in Paris and the Vevey School in Switzerland. In 1956, he started shooting fashion photography, developing a signature style in capturing women’s beauty with classic elegance . His black and white images, where shadows seem to emphasize rather than hide fluid curves, offer voyeuristic peeks into women’s sensuality as well as dramatic hints of their personalities.

Very popular with the American market, Sieff moved to New York during the 1960’s, where he worked for the top fashion magazines, including Esquire, Glamour and Vogue. He’s best known, however, for his captivating images of celebrities, including Jane Birkin, Alfred Hitchcock and Yves Montand. In the video that features his photography and the song Je t’aime moi nonplus, performed in a sizzling duet by Jane Birkin and her lover Serge Gainsbourg, the video artist Elia Iglesias captures Sieff’s intoxicating mixture of eroticisism and elegance.

Sieff won many hearts and several prestigious awards for his images, including the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in Paris (1981) and the Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1992). He is the blueprint and inspiration for postromantic photographers today, whose works you can view on our website http://postromanticism.com/

The twentieth century was the era of specialization. Every field became so highly specialized and technical that only experts could master each discipline. The twenty-first century, however, is the era of collaboration. As an art critic, I’ve witnessed this comingling among different fields in the domains of advertising, cinema and photography. Some of the most talented photographers in the world work as Directors of Photography for commercials and film. Since both are primarily visual arts, one might expect a fruitful collaboration between the domains of photography and film. What is more unexpected, however, is the combination of photography and dance. No artist that I know of has pulled it off better than Richard Calmes.

An American dance photographer with a growing international reputation, Richard Calmes has travelled all over the United States to capture the talent of some of the most gifted dancers and share it with the world. His images range from the most urban contemporary dancers in New York to the most classical dancers in Washington D.C. He experiments with light, setting and color to capture the unique aspects of each genre of dance as well as of each dancer. His photography represents an homage to the beauty of dance as well as to the mental and physical strength and discipline it takes to be a dancer and make your body do what most of us can’t: and, what’s more, do it gracefully.

In an email exchange, Richard told me that his great admiration for dancers has a personal dimension (as well as, incidentally, a connection to my native country, Romania): “My daughter danced in Bucharest in the early 90’s. There was a dance Company here in Atlanta, Georgia founded by a Romanian, Pavel Rotaru, who was once a famous dancer there. He took them to Romania on tour and they were received with much passion. She had a great time. It was watching her grow up and improve year after year which taught me the sacrifices and love dancers have for their art!”

Richard Calmes’ images, like dance itself, are poetry in motion. They express movement, personality, character, mood and theme. His more shadowy black and white series is understated, classic and mysterious. Most of his images, however, include striking and bright colors, to capture the drama, sensuality and passion of modern dance. And then you also have his motion or dynamic series, which trace the movements of the dancers in flight, to maintain the focus on dance as the most dynamic art form.

Featured on the covers of dance magazines as well as in gallery exhibitions, the photography of Richard Calmes shows the benefits of specialization and collaboration among the arts. This is no Marxist rotation of disciplines, where everyone purports to be good at everything: an impossible utopian goal that leads to nobody being really good at anything. Rather, Calmes’ images show the best of contemporary artistic reality at work: the most talented artists in each field working together to create something far better together than they would separately, as you can see in this video:

In my estimation, we’ll continue to see each field of art develop (both technically and artistically) and thrive in its own genre while at the same time we’ll see more and more collaborations among artists working in different domains. Soon art exhibits will no longer be held only in museums or galleries, but also in dance halls, movie theaters and concert halls. Analogously, dancers will sometimes dance at gallery exhibits, particularly when the exhibit itself focuses on the art of dance. Calmes is paving the way not only for other photographers, but also for the increasingly multidisciplinary direction of contemporary art in general. For more information about Richard Calmes’ photography, take a look at the artist’s website on the link below.

Alex M. Bustillo is an international artist par excellence. Born in Miami, Florida and of Cuban origin, he currently resides in France. Alex has lived throughout the world, however, including the United States, Puerto Rico, Latin America and Italy. It’s not only his diverse cultural backgrounds that shine through in his photographic collages, but also his keen interest in all aspects of culture: including philosophy, literature, music and film.

Pablo Picasso is credited with having invented the artistic collage, made up of sketches, painting and newspaper cutouts. Bustillo transforms this modernist tradition into a postmodern artform that includes overlapping materials as diverse as digital photography, plexiglas and aluminum foil that somehow work together to create a striking and unique artistic whole. Not limited to the visual arts, Bustillo has even collaborated with the American musician Garland Jeffreys to incorporate musical ideas in a visual context.

Bustillo doesn’t shy away from anthropology, philosophy or even erotic fiction. His collection Story of the Eye (above) offers a visual interpretation of Georges Bataille‘s famous erotic and philosophical collection of vignettes by the same name, which was published in 1928. Bataille is best known for his anthropology of pleasure, Eroticism (1957), which studies human sexuality in terms of religious sacrifice and cultural taboos.

But it’s Bataille’s erotic tale that captured the imagination of artists, literary critics and film producers. Written in the tradition of libertine fiction made popular in eighteenth-century France by the Marquis de Sade, Story of the Eye describes the erotic passion between an adolescent male (the narrator) and Simone, his main partner. The couple have a menage-à-trois with Marcelle, a mentally ill teenage girl, engaging together in various exhibitionist acts (in front of Simone’s mother) and other taboo sexual behaviors.

Simone and the narrator are the original Bonnie and Clyde–or Natural Born Killers, more like it–manifesting their penchant for transgression through their increasingly violent sexual bond. When Marcelle breaks out of the mental institution, she becomes suicidal and hangs herself. The sociopathic lovers have sex next to her corpse, suggesting necrophilia, a recurrent theme in the book. This seedy story seems to be taken right out of pulp or pornographic fiction; however, it’s become a favorite allegory of taboo and transgression among French (and Francophile) intellectuals. Both the American feminist critic Susan Sontag and the French structuralist literary critic Roland Barthes wrote about it.

In Bustillo’s interpretation, Bataille’s tale of sexual liberty and libertinism takes a dystopic turn. His dramatic images are atavistic yet historical (in the photograph above you can see superposed images of an Egyptian bust, an American Indian chief and a Roman soldier); disembodied yet carnal (one slim leg appears, suggesting death rather than desire). Rather than glorifying transgression, they tell the story of what (and who) is sacrificed by the individual and society when the sadistic and perverse are allowed free reign and gain power over others. At once elusive and allusive, the photography of Alex M. Bustillo provides a tantalizing peek into the world of culture. You can view more of Alex’s portfolio on the link http://www.saatchionline.com/alexmbustillo.

The Romanian photographer Nicolae Cosniceru puts a new spin on commercial and fashion photography. His images are stylish and polished, yet also have a rough, urban, element that takes viewers by surprise and makes them look closer at his pictures. They are often a study in contrast, in juxtaposition. Take, for instance, his high fashion photo shoot that takes place in a prison. The gorgeous models, dressed for a red carpet event, elegantly step out of the prison cells as if they were leaving a fancy restaurant. Next to them we see several prisoners, dressed in dingy prison uniforms, sitting calmly on a bench and getting their buzz haircuts. From their facial expressions you’d think: life as usual, for both the glamorous women and the imprisoned men. But the incongruity of the setting for the high fashion shoot adds an element of surprise that makes you do a double-take. Whatever may seem familiar about the world of entertainment and high fashion–which has almost taken the place of politics on the news–becomes, once again, refreshingly new.

Many of Cosniceru’s images also have more than a hint of humor. In Self-Portrait, featured above, the subject poses with the insolent manner of a European artist and intellectual: cigarette in hand (à la Jean-Paul Sartre?); in a spiffy black jacket; white striped shirt not buttoned all the way (only businessmen do that); gaze oriented upwards, most likely lost in profound thoughts. But the setting, once again, is rather unexpected and incongruous. The intellectual conducts his artistic contemplation not quite on the throne, but close enough: in a public restroom. For an added humorous touch, the toilet paper on the table is offered at a discount. And just to make sure viewers know they’re dealing with an Eastern European context, the bathroom door is smeared with the word DEFECT.

In a recent interview, Nicolae Cosniceru told me that he plans an artistic image to the same degree of detail that a painter would plan his painting. Self-Portrait includes relevant details, such as a cockroach on the floor, symbolic of the misery of the communist era. The photographer also revealed that he thought about placing a female model inside the stall, so viewers could see a woman’s feet and shoes instead of a man’s, to heighten the effect of the juxtapositions of the image. Devoted to the art of photography and a passionate aesthete–as well as, simultaneously, a loving and devoted husband and father–Cosniceru gives it his all, both in his art and in his family life.

Bakhtin, the famous Russian literary critic, argued that good literature (and art) is great at rendering the familiar new again. He coined a word for this process: defamiliarization. Through its surprising and innovative contrasts, Cosniceru’s photography defamilizes every concept and context it portrays, obliging viewers to look at his subjects with new eyes: not just once, but twice. Because when you look at Cosniceru’s provocative images it’s nearly impossible to resist doing a double-take. You can see more of his photography on his websites http://cosniceru.com/ and http://www.fotofactory.ro/

The art of portraiture is as old as human civilization itself. Until relatively recently, a portrait used to be, above all, a statement of cultural value. It revealed who, in any given society, had enough value that his or her image was worth being captured and preserved for posterity. While being a general statement of cultural importance, a portrait is also the most intimate and personal art form. A good portrait reveals a unique personality and captures the essence of a person.

Award-winning British photographer Jonathan Root is a master of the art of portraiture. He has photographed some of the most famous artists and designers in the world, including David Hockney, Philippe Starck and Ron Arad. In each shot, he’s able to capture each person’s uniqueness and accomplishments through a careful orchestration of so many elements: setting, lighting, color scheme, facial expression and pose. The subject and his environment become reflections of each other, yet remain distinct. The setting mirrors who that individual is as much as his expression and pose blend in perfectly with his surroundings. This art of portraiture as simultaneous expression and camouflage makes each of Root’s portraits stand out. No two portraits are alike because no two individuals he has photographed are alike.

One of Root’s most famous portraits is the one of Philippe Patrick Starck (see image above), a French designer known for the New Design style. He has furnished some of the most posh hotels around the world, including the Mondrian in Los Angeles and the Delano in Miami. Designing everything from furniture to toothbrushes and houses, Starck is innovative, avant-garde and flippant about his creativity. In an interview with Spaces Magazine, Root recounts the (in some respects fortuitous) adventure of photographing him:

“This turned out to be one of my most enjoyable shoots. I had to go to Venice and then onto the island of Burano. Unfortunately, my tripod had been damaged in transit which I was worried about. When I arrived on the island I went to a restaurant only to discover that everyone was celebrating because they had just won the famous annual rowing competition. No one spoke any English but with lots of sign language one of the guys there came out with some tools and mended the tripod. He arrived in this crazy Agnes B suit and I thought ‘what have I let myself in for’. He found the Wet Floor sign and wanted to use it in the shot so we wandered around for a while and found a brilliant orange wall. I used one of his Ghost chairs in the picture and got him leaning backwards, which is very hard to do for any length of time.” (Spaces Magazine, April 2008)

The picture turned out phenomenal: a modern, avant-garde treasure of design in itself. Every element expressed Starck’s persona (which, for an artist and designer, may be far more important than his actual personality!): the zany, colorful clothes; the orange background; the Wet Floor sign; the comical, almost clownish pose, and despite it all, the stylishness of the image, evident even in significant details like the sunglasses, red gloves and toppled ghost chair. This portrait really screams, rather than subtly hinting, Philippe Patrick Starck! But, at the same time, it also expresses Root’s own signature style. That style constantly changes because, like a chameleon, it adapts to both subject and setting alike.

Take, for instance, Root’s portrait (above) of a more understated but equally creative artist: the Israeli-born designer and architect Ron Arad, who creates everything from showers to chairs. This picture is starkly black and white, modernist, topological: similar to Arad’s designs themselves. Root captures his friend’s relaxed yet confident pose; his trademark hat and Crocs; his designer chair. Arad’s studio environment becomes a reflection and an extension of his identity and creativity, just as his image gives meaning to the carefully chosen objects that surround him. Jonathan Root has stated in an interview that “some of [my] best shots have come about by chance” (British Journal of Photography). What wasn’t left up to chance, however, is a fluid style that adapts perfectly to each subject and setting, creating memorable portraits that speak volumes about each individual they come to represent. You can find out more about Jonathan’s portraits on his website, www.jonathanroot.co.uk.

French photographer Frédéric Bourret offers a peek into mysterious, and perhaps unknowable, sides of us. His black and white images are hidden glimpses into an intimacy which is subtle, and only hints at the sexual, reminiscent in their perspective of Degas’s voyeuristic representations of dancers. Bourret often depicts feminine figures in shadows, or looking out the window, or mirroring each other, in a spectacular specularity that makes them both viewer and viewed. Inside and outside meet in this act of self-consciousness, reflected (quite literally) in the image below:

The photographer also depicts young women looking out the window, glimpsing at the city life which remains a mystery to them, as it is for the viewers. And here the themes of his intimate series à découvert mirror the motifs of his urban scenes, in his photographs of Paris and New York, a city where the artist has spent five years. Bourret’s skyscrapers, streets and secret corners all retain a touch of mystery despite the crisp clarity and polish of the images. The play of light and shadows, their impeccable artistry, and a furtive peek at objects and subjects partially hidden from view, all give the artistic photography of Frédéric Bourret an aura of intimate specularity. You can see more of Frédéric’s à Découvert images on the link http://www.fredericbourret.com/serie-a-decouvert.

Philippe Pache was born in 1961 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was educated at the School of Applied Arts of Vevey. Since 1982 he has held solo and group exhibits in galleries and museums all over the world, including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris and the Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

For centuries soft shadows in painting expressed mood, emotion and intimacy at least as much as color can. Da Vinci used chiaroscuro to convey the ambiguity of human expression; Caravaggio to highlight the drama and tumult of life; Vermeer to hint at blooming youth and the inner world of thoughts and emotions; La Tour to suggest simple faith and pensiveness.

The Swiss photographer Philippe Pache (http://www.philippepache.com/) relies upon this time-tested technique in painting to bring life, drama and, above all, reverie and contemplation to artistic photography. His nudes exude beauty and tranquility. They are exquisitely posed yet look completely natural. The focus of his images is on how each gesture and expression—the body itself—reveals a rich inner world of thoughts and feelings. The interplay of light and shadow not only highlights the depth of human subjectivity, but also marks the fluid boundaries between humanity and nature. Some of his portraits, though always beautiful, are facial landscapes of light, contour and shadow.

They gleam with the insentience of the mountains, sea and land that sometimes surround them; they become one, interchangeable with their magnificent natural settings. The beauty of femininity captured by Pache goes beyond realistic visual representation. It is the landscape of haunting and delicate dreams. Sometimes, as in the photograph called Cecilia, below, there’s no clear distinction between dreamer and dream. The beautiful young woman, bathed in fiery reds, sleeps peacefully as she, herself, is depicted as a figment of our imaginations, as a dream. Recognizably beautiful yet also indistinct, she floats above the dark shadows and red sheets that envelop her like a vapor.

Dreams are often vague and fragmentary. When we wake up, we rarely remember the whole “picture”: just those frames that broke through the veil of sleep and rose to the surface of our consciousness. Since we often dream about our deepest fears or most poignant desires, the fragmentary, partial nature of our dreams is perhaps nature’s way to protect us from ourselves: from what we either pursue or try to escape most in life. In Joined Hands, the photograph below, Pache once again captures both dreamer and dream. This image reveals an angelic young woman dressed in white, with her hands joined in quiet resignation or fervid prayer: we’ll never know which, since in Pache’s postromantic reveries, the dreamer remains as partial and mysterious as her dreams.

Newton’s third law of physics postulates that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. However, things don’t work out as neatly in the world of art. There are some rules that govern the world of art, but as they say, those are meant to be broken by new and innovative artists. One of the most creative and irreverent art movements was Dada, founded by a Romanian poet, Tristan Tzara. Like Surrealism, which later sprung from it, Dada was a broad cultural movement, involving the visual arts, poetry, literature, theater, graphic design and–inevitably–even politics.

Born in the wake of the devastation caused by WWI, Dada rejected “reason” and “logic,” which many of its artists associated with capitalist ideology and the war machine. Despite becoming internationally known for so many visible artists and poets, the Dada movement could not be pinned down. Its aesthetic philosophy was anti-aesthetic; its artistic contribution was anti-art. As Hugo Ball stated, “For us, art is not an end in itself… but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”

For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction? Even in the anti-rationalist world of art? Maybe so. But what actions might we be speaking of, today? It’s hard to pick and choose among the many dangers facing the contemporary world: the ever-present threat of terrorism; the backlash of democratic superpowers sometimes even against the innocent and the helpless; the plutocratic mentality threatening to engulf the free world; the homogenizing reign of pop culture; the standardization and what Marx would call the “object fetishism” that has reached unimaginable proportions in the globalized capitalist market.

Looking at the world through critical eyes can reveal a very discouraging picture. But maybe we need such so-called “nihilist” reactions from artists to avoid the bland conformity that threatens to normalize even phenomena which should, by all rights, shock us. Few would know about these modern phenomena better than Barna Nemethi: a young Romanian artist who grew up in a new capitalist market, which developed rapidly under his eyes, largely due to the efforts of his generation. By chance (or good fortune), as the son of Iren and Grigore Arsene, Barna also grew up at the center of Romanian culture. His adoptive father is the President of the Romanian Association of Editors and, along with his wife, Iren, the head of Curtea Veche Publishing, one of Romania’s most prestigious and largest publishing houses. Barna followed in his parents’ footsteps by becoming the Managing Parter at Curtea Veche Publishing (http://www.curteaveche.ro/) and the Executive Manager of the Advertising CompanyGriffon and Swans (http://www.griffon.ro/). He’s also a very talented film director and photographer.

But perhaps Barna Nemethi’s most ambitious, subversive and dynamic project is AllHollow (http://www.allhollow.com/), a new online magazine that combines photography, journalism, (anti)aesthetic philosophy, fashion, film and art. In the April issue, Laura Cosoi pays tribute to the legendary pop artist Andy Warhol by dressing like him and shooting video clips in which she imagines and recreates how he’d react to contemporary gadgets, such as the ipod.

The clips are quite stylish, but there’s a good measure of irony and humor in the tribute, as Laura emulates Warhol’s slow, meticulous style, in the vimeo clip below:

The April issue of AllHollow also includes Wonderland (Concept by Oana Paunescu, produced by Alina Huza and filmed by Patru Paunescu, directed by Vlad Fenesan and photographed by Barna Nemethi). The film and the photo shoot both mediate the boundaries between high fashion (modeled by Iulia Cirstea) and new Surrealism/Dada images and scenes.

The set itself has dream-like inconsistencies and juxtapositions. A spectacularly beautiful woman, dressed in a combination of nightgown/ballerina outfit and black fishnet stockings, lies on a metal bed above which hangs…a giant fish. She’s surrounded by three manechins, which seem evocative of feminine and masculine roles.

The “heroine” moves with the mechanical, slow and sometimes sensual abandon of someone trapped in a dream, or perhaps unwittingly trespassing the boundaries between dream and reality. The images and the model are so hauntingly beautiful that they belong in a high-fashion shoot. Yet, at the same time, the incongruous setting and absurd array of props surrounding the model makes the entire scene evocative, open-ended in meaning and surreal. There is no dominant theme, no obvious plot: nothing to trap the model in any structure other than the aura of the fantastic itself.

I can’t write about AllHollow without also alluding to The Hunt, a series of photographs taken by Barna Nemethi in Manhattan, which features the models Zuzanna Buchwald and Will Vendramini. Like Wonderland, there’s a Surrealist mood and more than a touch of Dadaism in these images. The handsome man sometimes wears a funny animal mask, sometimes not. He’s simultaneously presented as a stalker/predator in search for his languid prey and as an attractive potential date for the beautiful woman.

The Hunt makes light of–while also making viewers attuned to–the strange (yet normalized) mating/dating rituals that men and women commonly engage in. But, simultaneously, like practically all of Barna Nemethi’s series, this set of images could easily function as a high fashion photo spread that seamlessly combines impeccable stylishness and subversive creativity.

For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. This happens in the laws of physics and sometimes also in the more erratic world of art. In the case of Barna Nemethi’s innovative AllHollow project, however, the action and the reaction come from the same source. Barna Nemethi’s film and photography represent a new Dadaism full of artistic innovation and subversion at the heart of the marketing world that it simultaneously perpetuates and transforms.